Yes I finally have gotten to a computer that I’m not paying by the minute to use and… this is not a French key board that I am typing on. So I can actually include exclamation points and such. However, the French key boards are forcing me to FINALLY learn how to type without looking; and it’s about time. There is a health volunteer about a 40 minute walk from me that has been do kind enough to let me type stuff on his computer in my leisure time, so then I can then save whatever it is to my flash drive and then just copy and past it into the blog or email or whatever. There is no way I would ever have time/money to type this out in the cyber. Plus he is pretty cool, which is sweet, because it’s nice to be able to sometimes go hangout, speak English, watch movies, whatever.
So CTB is over (hallelujah) and I have been living in my site for about a month and half now (see uploaded pictures which will without a doubt evoke jealously over how beautiful my new home is) and I am starting to feel at home. It really is beautiful here. The only drawback is that it is really remote/rural. Due to the remote location of my site, it comes with a bit backwards behavior. Kind of like if you moved to tiny town in the backwoods of Kentucky where no one went to school past the 8th grade. But everyone spoke a language you didn’t know so you hardly ever understood what the hell was going on/the backwoods behavior. However, I think that is just part of the whole deal. If the people in the village were well educated and cosmopolitan esq; they wouldn’t need my help.
The big drawback to being so remote is that the only way to get out of the village is to take one of the two transits (aka an automatic BMW van with bench seats welled into it) owned by the two competing transit drivers in the village three hours down to the nearest town, Kelaa M’Gouna. The transit leaves at 4:00 am after the first call to prayer. But by far the best part of the whole transit situation is that because women here don’t often travel, they often get motion sick coming down from the mountains. This means that the whole transit smells like vomit the entire way. Last week I got stuck sitting next to a pucky woman and it was the weirdest thing. When the rest of the women in the transit tried to give her plastic bags to throw-up into, she refused them, preferring rather to through up into a washcloth. Although, as you can image, one can’t really throw-up into a wash cloth. I found this behavior strange and could not for the life of me understand why she refused the bags; however it didn't really seem like an ideal time to inquire as to why she didn't want the plastic bags. I dealt with this by closing my eyes and listing to Emmylou Harris on my mp3 player (thank you Brandi, because of you and the Emmylou you gave, this situation was much more bearable), it did a pretty good job of soothing me to the point that I didn’t start throwing-up. Thank you too, Ernie for the help with the Mp3 player/computer. Coping with situations like this would be much more difficult sans the music.
It stormed for days this week, and the sound of the thunder roaring thought the mountains was amazing and deafening, it sounded like the were jets flying yards over the village. I have never experienced storms like this. It thundered all day and then finally the rain came- hard. And the heat lightning, omg, for someone that loves storms this was super exciting. I think that my host family thought it was weird that I went and stood on the roof with an umbrella to watch, but, whatever.
The host family is good people. Six of the nine children are still living in the house and anytime one needs another rather than go find then they just stand in one spot and scream their name until the person yells back or they get tired of yelling. This can be a bit overwhelming especially given that I was lived alone for years prior to joining Peace Corps. Honestly, it feels like I am living in the Moss house circa 1998 and all four Moss girls and Nancy are a yelling at each other all at once. But the family is really good to me and helps me get around and integrate into the community everywhere they can. For example, if I need to get out of the village they will go with me and assist me in figuring with of the two transit guys is going to be going down to Kelaa in the morning and make sure that they don’t leave with me. The oldest daughter Nadia, and I have become friends and I value this friendship immensely. She is kind and thoughtful and always helps me to help me be “in the know” about what’s going on in the village. Sometimes she advises me as to how to proceed with my work and usually her suggestions are much better ideas than the course of action I was going to take. I think I would be really lonely if it weren’t for Nadia. Plus she is one of the only people that can understand me despite my “accent”/shity pronunciation.
Good, wonderful, spectacular news though! I found a house this week. When I got here, I was told that here was not a house that was empty that I would be able to move into. I was incredibly worried about what I was going to do about my living situation because this meant that I would either have to move to a different village and most likely would have end up working in that village or live with the house family for two years. The latter was not an option! This would have really sucked because then I would have lost out on and been unable to build on the work the volunteer prior to me did. She told me it took her the entire first year to get the village to understand she was here to do development work and not a tourist. The host fam told the previous volunteer that there was not a house available she could rent and therefore, she never moved out and the family subsequently ended up being paid the rent money we are allotted, for providing her with housing. However, I think that the having to contend with a complete lack of privacy made her service much harder then it would have had, had she had her own house. Anyway, I am just elated about this development! Plus I have already gotten comfortable here and started to build a rapport with the community, so I was very, vary relieved when the house magically became available. Basically I just told them that if I couldn’t find somewhere to live I would have to go live and work in another village and then all the sudden they seem to remember that there was a house available that I could live in. I can’t wait to have my own kitchen. I pretty much have to eat what they eat and last week they cooked a goat head that had been sitting in a bucket of lukewarm water for days and then I throw-up for days. K that’s all I have time for now. But next time I blog…lol (I just think that its so funny that I blog, who knew that my life would ever consist of anything worth bloging about?) I will talk about/cover the projects I’m gonna be working on and my trip to Marrakesh and Rabat. Which was awesome…. Later I can’t really keep my eyes open anymore now.
So CTB is over (hallelujah) and I have been living in my site for about a month and half now (see uploaded pictures which will without a doubt evoke jealously over how beautiful my new home is) and I am starting to feel at home. It really is beautiful here. The only drawback is that it is really remote/rural. Due to the remote location of my site, it comes with a bit backwards behavior. Kind of like if you moved to tiny town in the backwoods of Kentucky where no one went to school past the 8th grade. But everyone spoke a language you didn’t know so you hardly ever understood what the hell was going on/the backwoods behavior. However, I think that is just part of the whole deal. If the people in the village were well educated and cosmopolitan esq; they wouldn’t need my help.
The big drawback to being so remote is that the only way to get out of the village is to take one of the two transits (aka an automatic BMW van with bench seats welled into it) owned by the two competing transit drivers in the village three hours down to the nearest town, Kelaa M’Gouna. The transit leaves at 4:00 am after the first call to prayer. But by far the best part of the whole transit situation is that because women here don’t often travel, they often get motion sick coming down from the mountains. This means that the whole transit smells like vomit the entire way. Last week I got stuck sitting next to a pucky woman and it was the weirdest thing. When the rest of the women in the transit tried to give her plastic bags to throw-up into, she refused them, preferring rather to through up into a washcloth. Although, as you can image, one can’t really throw-up into a wash cloth. I found this behavior strange and could not for the life of me understand why she refused the bags; however it didn't really seem like an ideal time to inquire as to why she didn't want the plastic bags. I dealt with this by closing my eyes and listing to Emmylou Harris on my mp3 player (thank you Brandi, because of you and the Emmylou you gave, this situation was much more bearable), it did a pretty good job of soothing me to the point that I didn’t start throwing-up. Thank you too, Ernie for the help with the Mp3 player/computer. Coping with situations like this would be much more difficult sans the music.
It stormed for days this week, and the sound of the thunder roaring thought the mountains was amazing and deafening, it sounded like the were jets flying yards over the village. I have never experienced storms like this. It thundered all day and then finally the rain came- hard. And the heat lightning, omg, for someone that loves storms this was super exciting. I think that my host family thought it was weird that I went and stood on the roof with an umbrella to watch, but, whatever.
The host family is good people. Six of the nine children are still living in the house and anytime one needs another rather than go find then they just stand in one spot and scream their name until the person yells back or they get tired of yelling. This can be a bit overwhelming especially given that I was lived alone for years prior to joining Peace Corps. Honestly, it feels like I am living in the Moss house circa 1998 and all four Moss girls and Nancy are a yelling at each other all at once. But the family is really good to me and helps me get around and integrate into the community everywhere they can. For example, if I need to get out of the village they will go with me and assist me in figuring with of the two transit guys is going to be going down to Kelaa in the morning and make sure that they don’t leave with me. The oldest daughter Nadia, and I have become friends and I value this friendship immensely. She is kind and thoughtful and always helps me to help me be “in the know” about what’s going on in the village. Sometimes she advises me as to how to proceed with my work and usually her suggestions are much better ideas than the course of action I was going to take. I think I would be really lonely if it weren’t for Nadia. Plus she is one of the only people that can understand me despite my “accent”/shity pronunciation.
Good, wonderful, spectacular news though! I found a house this week. When I got here, I was told that here was not a house that was empty that I would be able to move into. I was incredibly worried about what I was going to do about my living situation because this meant that I would either have to move to a different village and most likely would have end up working in that village or live with the house family for two years. The latter was not an option! This would have really sucked because then I would have lost out on and been unable to build on the work the volunteer prior to me did. She told me it took her the entire first year to get the village to understand she was here to do development work and not a tourist. The host fam told the previous volunteer that there was not a house available she could rent and therefore, she never moved out and the family subsequently ended up being paid the rent money we are allotted, for providing her with housing. However, I think that the having to contend with a complete lack of privacy made her service much harder then it would have had, had she had her own house. Anyway, I am just elated about this development! Plus I have already gotten comfortable here and started to build a rapport with the community, so I was very, vary relieved when the house magically became available. Basically I just told them that if I couldn’t find somewhere to live I would have to go live and work in another village and then all the sudden they seem to remember that there was a house available that I could live in. I can’t wait to have my own kitchen. I pretty much have to eat what they eat and last week they cooked a goat head that had been sitting in a bucket of lukewarm water for days and then I throw-up for days. K that’s all I have time for now. But next time I blog…lol (I just think that its so funny that I blog, who knew that my life would ever consist of anything worth bloging about?) I will talk about/cover the projects I’m gonna be working on and my trip to Marrakesh and Rabat. Which was awesome…. Later I can’t really keep my eyes open anymore now.
